KUALA LUMPUR, March 5 — The "Geng Ayoi Gombak” suspected of being involved in 300 snatch thefts here has been finally crippled with the arrest of eight of its members recently.

The suspects, including a Thai national, were nabbed in a series of raids in Shah Alam, Sentul and Hulu Klang from January 26 until Monday,

Kuala Lumpur police chief, Datuk Saiful Azly Kamaruddin said the police nabbed four men including a Thai national in a raid on January 26 before detaining a man who performed the role of snatcher two days later.

He said following this, police arrested a man said to be the mastermind in Shah Alam and seized a BMW car and a motorcycle.

"We continued the arrests by nabbing two men at a jewellery store in Hulu Kelang whose functions were to buy melted gold.

"Also seized were equipment to melt gold, 37 gold chains, bangles, rings, and lockets, gold scraps, cash, luxury watches and a Mercedez Benz estimated to be worth RM2 million,” he told a media conference at the Kuala Lumpur Police Contingent Headquarters here, today.

Saiful Azly said investigations found that the mastermind would buy the snatched gold bangles and chains at RM190 a gram before melting them.

He said the mastermind would then sell the melted gold at RM216 a gram to another suspect, namely, a gold buyer and the former would receive between RM50,000 and RM70,000 each week.

"This gang was active since last year and the overall seizure is worth RM2 million,” he said.

He said three suspects were released on police bail. The rest were remanded under the Prevention of Crime Act (POCA) and Section 4(1)(a) of the same Act for 21 days.

Meanwhile, in a separate case, police detained six men suspected to be involved in cloning cars and car theft.

Saiful Azly said all the suspects, aged from 22 to 42 years, were believed to be active in the last three years.

He said their modus operandi was by targeting cars on which instalments had not been serviced and stealing cars from Singapore and changing their chassis numbers to those belonging to destroyed vehicles.

"We seized 19 cars of various makes from a used car dealer in Cheras. Of the total, 16 have signs of modifications to the chassis numbers while nine were reported missing. All were worth RM3.5 million.

"This syndicate sold cars via websites and face-to-face with a maximum price of RM120,000 each,’’ he said.

Two of the eight suspects had been charged under Section 411 and 414 of the Penal Code while the rest were released on police bail. — Bernama